Americans Show Less Willingness to Move

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Moves across the country dropped to an all-time low this year, new Census data shows. The percentage of Americans migrating within the country dropped to 11.2 percent, according to the Census’ “Geographic Mobility: 2015 to 2016” report.

The highest number of moves, however, came from minority demographics. African Americans comprised 13.8 percent of those relocating while the Asian population consisted of another 13.4 percent and the Hispanic/Latino population made up 12.6 percent of all moves. On the other hand, the white population consisted of about 10.3 percent of movers.

“People in the United States are still moving, just not to the same extent as they did in the past,” says David Ihrke, a survey statistician in the Census Bureau’s Journey-to-Work and Migration Statistics Branch. “The decision to move can be personal and contextual. What causes one person to move might not be enough to convince another.”

Of those who did move, they were mostly doing so for “housing-related reasons,” according to the report. Forty-two percent of movers say they relocated for reasons such as the desire to find a “better” home. About 27 percent of movers migrated due to a “family-related reason” and 20 percent moved for an “employment-related reason.”

The most outbound moves – 901,000 – occurred in the South. But those residents were replaced with even higher inbound moves – 940,000, according to the report.

Moves occurring at some of the highest rates were between Florida and New York, and California and Texas. For example, 62,289 residents left New York to move to Florida. Meanwhile, 65,546 residents left California to migrate to Texas.

Source: “Don’t Move: Americans Migrated Less This Year,” RISMedia/Census Bureau (Nov. 19, 2016)

Source: NAR – Real Estate News
Americans Show Less Willingness to Move

Image Credit: David Rosen via Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

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